


(And I Will Try) To Fix You

by ifeelbetter



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Iron Man 3 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:51:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifeelbetter/pseuds/ifeelbetter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An expansion of the moment between Bruce and Tony at the end of Iron Man 3, the reason Tony actually dropped in to see Bruce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(And I Will Try) To Fix You

Since Tony was the one footing the bills, Bruce wasn’t surprised to find him in his basement when he got back from his Blimpie run.

“None for me, sugarpea?” Tony asked, tipping his sunglasses down his nose to look at Bruce.

“You call first, I’ll buy you a sandwich,” Bruce said. He tore the sandwich in half and handed Tony the end that probably had all the lettuce. It was iceberg lettuce and therefore mostly water but Bruce would have bet dollars to donuts that that would still be the most healthy thing Tony had eaten all day.

“Sharing is caring,” Tony quipped, but it sounded like a warning when he said it. It was the same way someone might say, “Feed it and it will follow you home,” as a warning when you start leaving bowls of milk out for a feral kitten.

“And here I thought I was being more subtle than that,” Bruce said. He popped the bag of chips open, ate one, and offered the open bag to Tony.

Tony edged closer in his too-cool-for-feelings shuffle—which Bruce would someday tell him was hilarious and not at all a convincing display of apathy—and took the proffered chip.

“Thanks,” he said.

Bruce knew that Tony didn’t get to the point right away—he liked that, actually. It’s not that he was layering his lies, not like the spies and killers various organizations had sent after him in his time, but because Tony was a corkscrew of a human being and there is no changing your nature. Bruce knew that better than most.

So for the first half hour, he puttered around the makeshift lab. It was nothing compared to Tony’s digs in Stark Tower, but Tony had made sure Bruce had everything a genius could want. He even had a ficus growing upstairs. (He was tracking his absent-minded watering schedule in a notebook hanging off one of the branches. He called it “Research.”)

The second half hour—and the hour attached to that—Bruce ended up settling into the chair by Tony. The story he was involved in was one of his epic ones—the kind that pulls a bait-and-switch by skipping wittily over the bits that hurt the most but lingers on how Mark 40 and Mark 42 both had that impressive modification to their thrusters that he would have to remember when he started again.

And then Bruce dozed for a while, still waiting.

And then Tony woke him up and started in on a story about his first jet propulsion rocket at age thirteen.

“Tony,” Bruce said finally and reached out to put a hand over Tony’s twitching knee. “What did you come here for?”

Tony sniffed, not meeting Bruce’s eyes.

“You know how sometimes you make a thing, right,” he said—and this looked like the end of the corkscrew tale, that was all sorts of honest in his face. “You know how you spent hours and hours on the thing originally and…and it was maybe your best thing, maybe your only—for a while at least—but it was yours because _you_ made it—”

“Are we talking about Dummy?” Bruce asked, taking a shot in the dark. “Is he OK?”

Because now that he thought about it—that’s where these stories had all been going. They were all the stories of Tony making something special and then watching as it burned. Bruce couldn’t help but think of thirteen-year-old Tony watching his first rocket climb the atmosphere—and probably his face falling when he’d realized it had actually worked, the rocket was gone.

Tony chewed on his bottom lip.

“I need your help with him,” he said, watching Bruce’s feet. His voice was so tiny. “I broke him.”

“He’s a tough guy,” Bruce said, squeezing the knee under his hand. “We’ll get him up and running in no time.”


End file.
